Lakers empty the tank with victory over Utah

SALT LAKE CITY – In the backwards world of tanking, where losing is winning and NBA executives chase pingpong balls like children trying to catch butterflies, Monday night did not represent progress for the Lakers.

Go ahead, tell that to Robert Sacre. At your own peril.

“I don’t care what anybody says,” the Lakers center said. “People can comment on that all they want. None of us are trying to tank. I think it’s the dumbest thing ever.”

Coach Mike D’Antoni echoed the sentiment: “What are you going to tell them? Don’t play hard? That’s not right.”

The Lakers might have hurt their chances of moving into the top three of June’s draft with a convincing 119-104 win over the last-place Utah Jazz on Sunday, but that wasn’t the concern of players.

Behind a season-high 41 points from Nick Young, the Lakers (26-55) opened the fourth quarter with a 16-1 run to put away the Jazz (24-57) and snap a seven-game losing streak. Jodie Meeks added 23 points for the Lakers, and provided shut-down defense on Jazz star Gordon Hayward to help the Lakers recover from a 13-point deficit in the second quarter.

A loss in front of a sparsely populated EnergySolutions Arena would have tied the Jazz and Lakers with one game remaining.

SwaggyP knew what was up.

“If we would’ve lost tonight,” Young said, “we would’ve been in last place in the West. But we would’ve had more lottery balls. I wasn’t thinking about it. I went out and played this game and had fun and found a way to win.”

And even though the Lakers vowed earlier Monday they weren’t in it to lose, midway through the second quarter Monday they weren’t in it at all.

They trailed by 45-32 with five minutes remaining in the period, but rallied and went into halftime on a 12-0 run. In the end, the only tank was the proverbial one with which the Lakers ran over the only Western Conference team worse than themselves.

“It shows character in us,” Young said. “We could’ve easily gone in there and got blown out by 20 and ended the season. We went out and played.”

Young scored 17 of his 41 in the fourth quarter, and found himself with several opportunities to break his career high of 43, but missed his final two 3-pointers.

“I wish I had those shots back,” Young said. “I had them wide open, too.”

The Los Angeles native who has repeatedly expressed a desire to return to the Lakers in free agency eclipsed his previous season high of 40, set on April 1 in a loss to Portland. Both performance came off the bench.

So the tank is off, with the Lakers most likely slotted with the league’s sixth-worst record heading into the lottery on May 20.

And while the idea that efforts to have a poor season are ever tied to players is rare, somewhere Sacre is likely still fuming at the notion that the Lakers would have been better off with a loss.

“We‘re competitors,” he said. “They brought us in to compete. Obviously the season we brought is not what we wanted, but there’s no tanking on this side.”

BAZEMORE SURGERY

Lakers small forward Kent Bazemore will undergo surgery on Wednesday to repair a torn tendon in his right foot.

Bazemore met with specialist Dr. Kenneth Hunt on Monday at Stanford University Medical Center to evaluate the injury, which he suffered in a 145-130 loss to Houston on April 8.

The injury will end up costing Bazemore the final four games of the season. Acquired from Golden State on Feb. 19 in the trade that sent Steve Blake to the Warriors, Bazemore averaged 13.1 points in 23 games with the Lakers, including 15 starts.

D’ANTONI’S FUTURE

No one quite knows D’Antoni’s future, and that seems to include the coach himself.

Surrounded by chatter that he could be fired after the end of the season, D’Antoni said he isn’t looking past this week.